Streetcars
We have been learning local Santa Rosa history by attending the Rural Cemetery Tours, nearly every month during the summer. The docents share so much information, on regular people as well as the early movers and shakers of the city. One of these was Mark L. McDonald, whose early successes allowed him to buy a seat on the San Francisco Stock Exchange, during which time he joined the ranks of the rich and powerful, including George Hearst, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker.
One of his many projects was to purchase 160 acres a mile from city center, which he subdivided and began to sell plots. Sales lagged (too far from the city center and too rural). So he built a streetcar, horse-drawn at the time, right to the end of the property, which worked to make the subdivision the most prestigious area of the city, which it remains.
Back in the 1920s, most American city-dwellers took public transportation to work every day.
There were 17,000 miles of streetcar lines across the country, running through virtually every major American city. That included cities we don't think of as hubs for mass transit today: Atlanta, Raleigh, and Los Angeles. During the 1800s, animal-drawn streetcar lines were built in cities across the United States. Starting in the 1880s, they were replaced by electrified streetcars, which quickly became the dominant mode of transportation in many cities.
Growing up in Milwaukee, streetcars were a part of life. Both Mrs. side pocket and I used them frequently. I remember riding with my grandfather to the end of the line, where all the seat backs were reversed for the return trip.
I have heard the conspiracy theories that Firestone, Oil companies, and GM destroyed the streetcar lines in favor of automobiles. Surprisingly, though, streetcars didn't solely go bankrupt because people chose cars over rail. The real reasons for the streetcar's demise are much less nefarious. The real problem was that once cars appeared on the road, they could drive on streetcar tracks — and the streetcars could no longer operate efficiently. "Once just 10 percent or so of people were driving, the tracks were so crowded that [the streetcars] weren't making their schedules," (Vox)
Have any of you ridden streetcars? They do exist in some places today. Do you have access? Of course, San Francisco has one. The San Francisco cable car system came under full Municipal ownership in 1952, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. And also fun to ride is New Orlean’s The St. Charles Streetcar Line,
